Jim CrowAnd it's Effect on Society

Jim Crow Political effects

Grandfather clause: People who could not read and owned no property were allowed to vote if their fathers or grandfathers had voted before 1867. Of course, practically no blacks could vote before 1867, so the grandfather clause worked only for whites

Property tests: In the South one hundred years ago, many states allowed only property owners to vote. Many blacks and whites had no property and could not vote.

Literacy tests: Today almost all adults can read. One hundred years ago, however, many people – black and white – were illiterate. Most illiterate people were not allowed to vote. A few were allowed if they could understand what was read to them. White officials usually claimed that whites could understand what was read. They said blacks could not understand it, even if they could.

Jim Crow effects in Economy

There were also setbacks, due to property being taken illegally; in the first 30 years of the 20th century, 24,000 acres (97 km2) were taken, from 406 separate landowners (Darity Jr. & Frank 2003:327). By 1930, the number of black owned farms was 3% lower than what it had been at the turn of the century

But too many black people can’t find living-wage jobs, and a lot of it is due to racism. A recent study found that job applicants were about 50 percent more likely to be called back if they had “white” names. A hiring analysis study found that white job applicants with criminal records were called back more often than blacks without criminal records.

De jure segregation applied mainly in the Southern United States. Northern segregation was generally de facto (i.e. occurring in practice, rather than being established by formal laws), with patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination—including discriminatory union practices—for decades.

Jim Crow Social Effects

The Birth of a Nation is only the most significant example of the kinds of American pop culture phenomena that worked to characterize blacks during the Jim Crow era. The creation a such racist images nationwide and even worldwide (the pro-Klan film was hugely popular in Germany and South Africa) had significant repercussions for black Americans. Racial stereotypes helped justify the exclusion of blacks from jobs and education, voting as well. They helped narmalize segregation. And in some cases, this element of nineteenth and twentieth century popular culture helped the entire nation excuse, ignore, and advocate some of the most gruesome crimes ever in the United States—many different brutal crimes. "Some people were crying," William Walker recalled of his experience viewing The Birth of a Nation in a blacks-only theater in 1916. "You could hear people say, 'Oh, God' and some 'd--n'... You had the worst feeling in the world. You just felt like you were not counted, out of existence."39